Movies: Death Wish II

If you're a woman, there's one rule you should follow if you ever find yourself in the "Death Wish" series of action flicks: never in any way be related to Paul Kersey, since you're guaranteed to get savagely raped and murdered about twenty minutes from the start of the movie. As the above trailer shows you, I'm not exaggerating one bit. I got the opportunity to see "Death Wish II" on TV, and I thought it'd make for a fun review.

Paul Kersey (played by the legendary Charles Bronson) is a fairly normal architect. He's got a steady girlfriend, a daughter whom he loves, and in general he's trying to put the events of the first "Death Wish" behind him. All this changes, though, when he is inexplicably the target of a group of thugs who proceed to rape and murder his daughter and his housekeeper. As you might expect, Kersey starts his old vigilante ways again, and blood starts flowing.

The main difference between this flick and the first movie is that Kersey somehow manages to track down every single person who was involved in the murders (in the first movie, I don't believe he ever finds the people who actually killed his wife). He wanders through L.A. and manages to find all these criminals, which moves "Death Wish II" squarely into the action movie/wish fulfillment arena. You even get some corny one-liners ("Do you believe in Jesus? You're about to meet Him.").

The movie staggers along like Bronson himself, although it's at its best during the times Kersey is tracking down the thugs like a prehistoric hunter. Later "Death Wish" flicks would become even crazier (the series' next entry, "Death Wish III," features Kersey mowing down criminals with a machine gun and a rocket launcher). On the whole it's not a very good movie, but it serves as an interesting transition point between sorta-thoughtful vigilante movie and mindless actionfest. Curiously enough, the soundtrack was done by Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin fame).

Rating: 4/10